A state corrections officer has pleaded guilty to beating a man at a Woodbridge sex offender treatment facility — an attack his family described as “a gang-style assault” in a wrongful death lawsuit they later filed against the state.

Giuseppe Mandara, 55, of Brick, pleaded guilty Tuesday to aggravated assault for attacking Darrell Smith, 50, who died of a stroke five days after the Aug. 23, 2019, incident in a housing unit at the Adult Diagnostic and Treatment Center. The beating occurred after Smith took peanut butter, bananas, and sugar leftover from breakfast out of the kitchen, where he worked, according to the family’s lawsuit and Mandara’s attorney, Stuart Alterman.

Mandara agreed to give up his job under a plea agreement, according to the state Attorney General’s Office.

The agreement also bars him from any future public office or employment. Mandara was a correctional officer for 20 years, Alterman said. State payroll records show his annual salary reached $106,577 this year, although he hasn’t gotten a salary since last year because he was suspended without pay in July 2023.

Mandara faced up to 10 years in prison when a state grand jury indicted him in June 2023. Then, he was charged with second-degree official misconduct for abandoning his keys and radio and using excessive or unlawful force, a crime that carries a mandatory minimum of five years in prison and up to $150,000 in fines. The grand jury declined to indict Mandara on homicide charges.

The Attorney General’s Office said Wednesday that prosecutors will recommend a four-year prison sentence.

But Alterman said he instead expects Mandara will get probation because the plea agreement includes “a presumption of non-incarceration,” which is typically reserved for first-time offenders convicted of third- and fourth-degree crimes. Sentencing is set for Jan. 31.

Alterman said Mandara was a longtime officer who otherwise had a “flawless record.”

“He engaged in a fight with the inmate and perhaps was overzealous when engaging in the fight,” Alterman said. “The evidence does not demonstrate that he did anything more than strike the inmate, and the precipitant behavior was, in fact, the inmate using his position in the kitchen to commandeer materials which are normally known and used for making alcoholic beverages, or hooch, as they call it.”

Smith’s family did not respond to a request for comment.

But last year, they told the New Jersey Monitor that Mandara was one of multiple officers who taunted Smith with homophobic slurs and then jumped him in two separate attacks over one weekend, kicking, punching, slamming, and stomping him until he was unresponsive and catatonic. The officers dragged Smith to an area that was a blind spot for the facility’s surveillance cameras, the relatives said.

After the first assault, prison staff put him in solitary confinement and withheld medical treatment from him for so long that by the time they took him to a hospital, he was brain dead, his relatives said.

Their lawsuit remains ongoing.

Smith was incarcerated in the prison’s special treatment unit, where residents who have served their criminal sentences remain locked up under civil commitment because they’re considered to be not ready for reentry.

Drew Skinner, executive director of the public integrity and accountability office overseen by the attorney general, said the guilty plea shows that the state won’t ignore or condone abuses of people in state custody.

“The defendant violated the trusted position he held and will be held accountable,” Skinner said.

New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on Facebook and X.

The record is in: Nadine Menendez is a bad, or maybe unlucky, driver.

The wife of indicted Sen. Bob Menendez racked up 10 points for driving infractions in New Jersey since 2005, according to driving records the New Jersey Monitor obtained through the state Open Public Records Act.

While bad drivers statewide might wonder what’s the big deal, Menendez was at the wheel in December 2018 when she hit a pedestrian and killed him in Bogota (she was not charged). And federal prosecutors say the new Mercedes-Benz convertible she got in April 2019 to replace the car she wrecked by hitting Richard Koop was part of a massive corruption scheme that prompted authorities to indict her, her husband, and others identified as their bribers.

Her driving record shows that she was cited for using a hand-held phone while driving in September 2021, maintenance of lamps in 2016, speeding twice on the same day in 2010, improper passing in 2007, and failure to observe a traffic control device in 2005.

The citations earned her 10 points on her driver’s record. If you get six points within three years in New Jersey, you get fined, and 12 points in the same period gets your license suspended.

The record also shows she took several defensive driving courses to get the 10 points stricken from her record.

It references the Dec. 12, 2018, crash that killed Koop, but no points were levied in that incident.

Menendez’s attorney, Danny Onorato, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

The crash and the controversy surrounding it — she left the scene without police ticketing or testing her for intoxication — drove a state lawmaker to introduce legislation in the last legislative session to require breath or blood tests in vehicle crashes involving pedestrians. It didn’t pass, but the bill’s sponsor, Assemblywoman Nancy Muñoz (R-Union), reintroduced the bill last month for the new session.

Nadine Menendez racked up six driving citations since 2005, her driver’s record shows. Menendez, whose husband is Sen. Bob Menendez, was at the wheel of a fatal crash in 2018 and her replacement car was a gift for illegal favors, federal authorities said in her 2023 indictment.

New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence McDonald for questions: info@newjerseymonitor.com. Follow New Jersey Monitor on Facebook and Twitter.